Heat recoverable marker sleeves have been used and dispensed in various assemblies and configurations. U.S. patent No. 4,032,010 to Evans discloses the use of heat recoverable marker sleeves on a fingered carrier suitable for printing the marker sleeves in a typewriter or computer printer. This assembly requires that the marker sleeves be partially recovered onto the fingers of the carrier to hold them on the carrier then after the marker sleeves are printed they ar removed, placed on the wire or substrate and further recovered into final position.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,191,405 and 4,198,451 to Johnstun disclose flattened heat shrinkable tubing as marker sleeves which are laminated onto a carrier sheet. In one case ('405) they are laminated between carrier sheets and in the other case ('451) the marker sleeves are laminated onto one carrier sheet and the leading edges of the sleeves are covered with a flap or layer of another material. Marker sleeves assembled in this fashion are difficult to register for printing and difficult to remove from the sheets for use after they are printed. These assemblies have multiple layers which increase the thickness of materials which must pass through the printer.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,361,230, 4,363,401, and 4,425,390 to Downing et al., Savagian and Changani et al., respectively, disclose assemblies of marker sleeves made from sheets of material which are bonded together at various seams and perforated for separation. The laminated and bonded sheets themselves form the assembly and carrier means for the marker sleeves. These types of marker sleeves suffer from the disadvantage, however, that they welded edges and perforated seams either leave rough edges protruding from the wires after the sleeve is recovered onto the wire (see FIG. 4 of '230) or, if the sleeve is recovered sufficiently to smooth out the edges, the seams frequently break and the marker sleeve fails to remain on the wire.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a marker sleeve assembly that does not require partial or preliminary recovery of the marker sleeves onto the carrier means.
It is further an object of this invention to provide a marker sleeve assembly that is easily adaptable to being printed on platen fed or sprocket fed typewriters, computer printers and the like without having undue multiple layers of support sheets or materials.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a marker sleeve assembly for flattened tubular recoverable marker sleeves so that the tubular marker sleeves remain sufficiently flattened during printing and return to their smooth and uniform tubular shape when recovered on the wire or other substrate thereby providing smooth tubular marker sleeves without seams or rough edges.
It is yet a further object of this invention to provide a marker sleeve assembly for flattened perforated tubular recoverable marker sleeves so that the tubular marker sleeves remain sufficiently flattened during printing and return to their tubular shape when recovered on the wire or other substrate thereby providing smooth tubular marker sleeves without seams, though the ends of such sleeves will not be smooth due to the perforations thereat.